Some tyrannies are so soft that they don’t even make the things they disapprove of illegal. For example, you can smoke all you like in New Zealand. It’s just that it may soon cost you $100 per pack:

In an attempt to discourage smokers from lighting up, New Zealand is considering raising the price of a pack of cigarettes to as much as $100 by 2020, Sky News reported.

The suggested measure is one of many ideas from New Zealand’s Ministry of Health to make the country smoke-free by 2025, according to a document released to 3 News in New Zealand.

The inevitable result of the government setting prices rather than the free market is oppression. When they are done with smokers, do-gooder authoritarians will next come after drinkers and people who eat meat. In the USA, Obama has applied this approach to fossil fuels by consistently applying policies that are making them prohibitively expensive.

Ok, lao I will accept the fact that gas prices are not entirely of bammy’s making, if you also concede bammy has done nothing to help the situation. In fact his policies have made it worse.
A president can influence speculators, exploratory development, and other key factors just by giving speeches that encourage development. Mr. “Necessarily Skyrocket” has been nothing but a contra encourager.

StanInTexas

Now, Frank… you KNOW that only a Republican President can be held accoutable for high gas prices.

A Democrat in the White House has so many people in the media, as well as willing hacks like Lao, to tell us how the President is not responsible for ANYTHING that happens while he is in office.

Everybody who was blaming Carter in the ’70s, Bush in the early 2000s, and now Obama needs to take a seat and learn something. Unless the price of crude changes, or the cost of transport and distribution changes, gasoline prices will change but little, and there is nothing the president can do about it… nothing.

SOME in the media are FINALLY coming out and saying that Obama can do something about gas prices. When Bush was President, Pelosi and Reid were holding press conferences in front of gas station (with the price signs shown prominantely in the background). There was massive blame on Bush to fix the high gas prices.

Now that prices are climbing in the Obama Administration, a few voices are asking the President to do something. And the same people blaming Bush for high prices are now publishing articles about how the President can’t do anything about it.

Even YOU can see the hypocrisy here.

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.ca Reaganite Republican

Bloomberg’s death penalty for smoking will soon trump that

Jay B.

Bullshit Lao, prices are based on speculation. Obama had done nothing but hinder the industry, so speculation goes high fearing market shortages. He’s not entirely to blame but he’s choosing to do this.

We could increase oil as much as we want. Wont do any good if OPEC cuts production to match our increase. still in the same boat

bobdog

Obama can indeed do something about high gasoline prices, and has to shoulder some of the repsonsibility for at least part of the rise in prices since he took office.

Gasoline is a commodity and priced by supply and demand. If supply is artificially constrained, the price will rise. This is indisputable.

Obama had the authority to open up ANWR development, he unilaterally directed a halt in drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, he is still slow walking the approval of drilling leases in the Gulf, he is searching for a way to forbid fracking, and he is doing everything he can possibly do to stonewall the development of the Keystone Pipeline, to the point that the Canadians are about to start building another pipeline to the west coast to ship their oil to China.

We have the oil. But for Obama, higher gasoline prices is an objective, not a problem.

StanInTexas

Sinister, how is it that an action or rumor of action in the Middle East will cause the price of gas to change overnight, but drilling for oil in North America and refining our own gasoline will have no effrect whatsoever on prices?

Sinister66

StanInTexas says:

Since we do drill and refine our own oil I dont see the point your trying to make. Do you have any idea how much of an increase in domestic oil production it would take to effect the world market? We already refine more gasoline then we use and sell it off to other countries.

StanInTexas

What I know, Sinister, is that restricting the oil we can drill in this country and refining has a NEGATIVE impact on oil prices and makes up MORE dependent on foreign oil.

The point is that Obama is doing everythign he can to MAKE us pay more for gas.

lao

It has been suggested that the solution is to “Drill Baby, Drill!” Since the government does not own the wells, drills, or oil leases, the suggestion is an exercise in futility. The private owners of the oil would simply sell it at market price. Besides that, all the oil fields in the USA produce less than two percent of the world’s oil. Their owners have no incentive to force prices lower, so… gas prices would not be affected.

Which goes to show that what stanwee “knows” and reality, are two different things.

Dr. 9

New Zealand must have been watching NYC’s limp-wristed little Fascist, His Majesty Bloomberg. He believes that no one should be allowed to do anything HE dislikes. And, if he can’t make it illegal, then he’ll tax you into submission. A pack of smokes in NYC is $14. (w/tax) which is a heaven-sent gift to the Russian organized crime groups who now control most of the crime in this city. Actually, the bulk of the crime in NYC is controlled by the elected lying crooks, 95% of them being leftist Demoncrats.

Apparently, NYC’s socialists don’t seem to get it when it comes to prohibitions. You CAN NOT stop people from doing what they want to do, especially if what they’re doing is legal! All you can do is squeeze every cent out of them and disguise it as a “health” issue. In Manhattan, smokers are treated worse than child molesters.

You don’t smoke, so you don’t care? Will you care when they get around to some legal activity you enjoy?

lao

When they try to charge $100 for a jumbo jar of peanut butter, you’ll see me on the barricades.

StanInTexas

So Lao produces some random quote without attribution (and most likely one he cannot or will not defend) and he thinks he proven something?

Dance on, Lao, you entertain us with your futility!

lao

Poor stanwee, inept as always.

The quote comes from the link that I previously quoted – @7:59.

StanInTexas

Oh, the OPINION article, Lao? Well why didn’t you say so.

Allow me to respond… BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Apparently to you and Sinister, the rules that govern the price fluctuations in oil and gas across the globe do not apply to the same actions taken in the United States.

Curious how that works!

AC

When they try to charge $100 for a jumbo jar of peanut butter, you’ll see me on the barricades.

Do you have any idea how much saturated fat is in peanut butter?

You probably do, yet you eat it anyway, because you enjoy it.

Is there any smoker out there who doesn’t know that cigarettes are bad for them?

There are plenty of food Nazis who won’t eat peanut butter and believe eating any food that high in fat is inherently irrational, along the same lines as smoking a cigarette.

FrankW

No but the government does hold up drilling. In late 2009 on land my family has in western OK, the needed steps for drilling a new well were complete. The company was planning to start activity after the winter ended (give or take March 2010) In February of 2010 the permission to drill was held up by the epa. The reason, there was a noxious weed that the epa said was endangered. The adjoining properties werte being subsidizing by the feds/state to remove the weeds. In late 2011 the epa released the drill permit and allowed it to go forward. In January of this year the dept. of energy stopped the process wanting to do a study of a pipeline 75 miles away. Last week the oil company decided it was too much trouble to follow up on. Monday the dept of energy decided the study cost too much and dropped it. If we decide to do this all over again, it will take a minimum of 1 year to bring in the first piece of equipment. And that is only if the feds do not make additional roadblocks.
However we did get an offer to buy the mineral rights by a OK state energy company owned by a sizable liberal (guess the name time), they said they can get the process expedited.
And you said bammy has no influence. Drill, baby, drill has nothing to do with the government doing anything, it is about the government getting out of the way.

What your not getting is if we drilled and refined enough oil were we wouldnt have to import 1 drop we would still be paying the world market price. Oil is a global commodity.

StanInTexas

Sinister, what YOU don’t get is that is not how the market works. Increases or decreases in production in the Middle East have IMMEDIATE impacts on prices.

It defies logic that you think the same thing will not happen here.

SR

Lol. One thing for sure high gas and energy prices are hurting the Obama reelection campaign and the far left knows it. It’s hilarious watching the spin.

Sinister66

StanInTexas says:

“Apparently to you and Sinister, the rules that govern the price fluctuations in oil and gas across the globe do not apply to the same actions taken in the United States.”

I never said that. keep the lies to a minimum please. In fact I said the opposite.

StanInTexas

That is EXACTLY what you said Sinister. You keep telling us that increased drilling and refining in America will have no effect on gas prices.

wingmann

lao says:
April 24, 2012 at 8:29 am
_____________________________
Neither oBAMBIE nor you know little,or nothing,about oil/gas/traders/speculators.
Now I’m all for punishing the crooks in the system but PLEASE don’t tell me THE SPECULATORS ARE DRIVING THE PRICE UP!
Natural gas is at HISTORICAL LOWS….CAN WE BLAME THE SPECULATORS FOR DRIVING THE PRICE DOWN?? WHERE ARE THE INVESTIGATIONS??

Assclowns,the whole LOT!

Sinister66

StanInTexas says:

You are just too dense.

“Sinister, what YOU don’t get is that is not how the market works. Increases or decreases in production in the Middle East have IMMEDIATE impacts on prices.”

On the world market. Not the local market. When the middle east increases or decreases production it has an imact on prices across the globe. If we increased our production five million barrels of oil per day and opec cuts back Five million barrels of oil then there shouldnt be any change in the price of oil.

StanInTexas

Sinister, so you want us to beleive that the OPEC would cut production 5 million barrels a day and lose all that revenue to the US just to keep the price of oil stable?

Again, you want us to beleive that the market forces that drive oil prices world wide would suddenly not apply if the US drilled more.

You are a fool!

Sinister66

StanInTexas says:

You talking like if we increase drilling here in the US our fuel prices would go down reguardless of what goes on in the rest of the world and thats just not true.

Joe

Don’t these dumb asses ever learn. Didn’t prohibition teach them anything? If people want to smoke, they’ll smoke. If they have to grow tobacco in their backyards, they’ll do it. The black market for tobacco will become huge, and then the violence will start. It’s almost like that’s what they want….wait a minute.

Sinister66

StanInTexas says:

Your making my head hurt.
Your a fool if you think OPEC would allow oil to go back down to fifty dollars a barrel. If we substantially increased oil production OPEC would cut production to keep the price high.

wingmann

“The U.S. is sitting on the world’s largest, untapped oil reserves — reservoirs which energy experts know exist, but which have not yet been tapped and may not be attainable with current technology. In fact, such untapped reserves are estimated at about 2.3 trillion barrels, nearly three times more than the reserves held by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) nations and sufficient to meet 300 years of demand — at today’s levels”http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/The_U.S._s_Untapped_Bounty_080630.html

So what’s the problem? Cost of extracting but MAINLY GOOBERMINT IN THE WAY!

StanInTexas

Sinister, I know you are trying your best to defend Obama and go against anything Conservative advocate, but you are a pathetic IDIOT if you think anything you said is even remotely true.

If we started drilling and producing here in America, OPEC *MIGHT* true to screw with their production for a while. But if we are producing and they are not, the the amount of oil worldwide would stay stable, the pricies woudl stay stable, and AMERICAN COMPANIES woudl get the money that is currently going to the Middle East.

Again (and I’ll try to use smaller words for you), if they drill more or drill less, the price changes. If we drill more, the same thing will happen.

Do you understand now, child?

AC

Al Capone was a major patron of Democratic politicians in the Chicago machine.

“Sinister, I know you are trying your best to defend Obama and go against anything Conservative advocate, but you are a pathetic IDIOT if you think anything you said is even remotely true.”

SoundS like I hit a soft spot. I posted links backing up my point. You have nothing. Thanks for playing.

StanInTexas

Pathetic attempt, Sinister.

People in the oil industry understand that “Markets are driven by expectations,” Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said on a recent conference call.

About the best the article can say for your side is that “Either way, it’s unlikely more drilling now would lower gas prices anytime soon.”

The trouble is, you and your ilk REFUSE to let us get started on ANYTHING. Just last week, I saw an article making the 10th anniversary of the bill to ban oil exploration in ANWAR. You remember ANWAR, that desolate place in Alaska that Liberals like yourself said would not produce and oil FOR TEN YEARS?

It defies even the simplesyt logic how small increases or decreases in production FOR WAHTEVER REASON in the Middle East has an OVERNIGHT impact on world-wide oil prices. But somehow the news that we in America would open up and begin drilling for the billions of barrels of oil here in our country would have NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER onworld prices???????

Even the articles you post disagree with you, Sinsiter.

whotothewhat

$100 for a pack of cigarettes to motivate people away from smoking, what a great idea. This should be applied to curb other expensive and deadly habits..$1000 tax on any sex act that causes a SDI.. The sex tax as it would become to be know would most likely help cities like San Francisco or Chicago balance its budget in no time.

StanInTexas

whotothewhat,

If it is Liberals in charge of this new TAX, here is what will happen.

They will impose the tax under the guise of stopping people from smoking. Tax revenue will initially come in. Then the tax will work and less people will be smoking. At this point, the Liberal government will decry a lack of tax revenue and implement new areas to “make up” the loss.

In the end, new tax on cigarettes, less people smoking, and a general tax increase for everyone.

Joe Casepack

No compassion here. Smoking sucks. People should just stop knowing that they are doing the right thing for their own health.

People that think it’s some sort of right are just addicted to the shit and need to suck my conservative dick.

I used to be hard addicted to nicotine so I know of what I speak.

bobdog

Regardless of how you feel about smoking, it’s impossible to ignore the sheer hypocrisy of continuing to permit the sale of tobacco products while at the same time milking it for all it’s worth.

I still smoke, I’m sorry to say, and I’m as conservative as anybody here, and no thanks, Joe. I think I’ll pass on your solicitation. Go find some liberal to do it.